With email marketing having an ROI of 4400%, it surely is a valuable asset for any marketer. It doesn’t only help bring lead prospects closer to your sales funnel but also entices existing customers to spend more time with your brand.
However, email marketing isn’t the only channel that is helping marketers grow their business in the digital space. Social media is also playing a great role in helping marketers achieve their goals. From one to one interaction with customers to building brand loyalty, social media helps marketers do it all. That’s the reason, 73% of marketers believe that social media is an effective marketing channel for their business.
While social media marketing can help you reach new people seamlessly, email marketing can assist you in making them convert. Now, imagine combining both the strategies together. The two can certainly make your marketing strategy top-notch.
What are the advantages of integrating email marketing and social media?
Let’s take a look at 4 reasons why social media and email marketing integration can work in favor of your brand.
Boost the marketing metrics
Incorporating social media tactics in your email marketing strategy makes it easy for your subscribers to share your email, thereby increasing your chances of improving your click-through and open rates. This, in turn, can help you enhance your conversion rates too.
Garner more subscribers on your list
Integrating social media and email marketing gives your subscribers an opportunity to talk about your emails on their social media channels. It will increase your brand’s word of mouth promotion. Simply put, more prospective customers would come to know about your emails and thus, amp up your chances of growing an email subscription list.
Recognize your loyal customers
You can find your loyal customers by retrieving their data from the email service providers. It will help you get an idea about your consistent customers. Further, you can use this data to send exclusive offers, coupons, and discounts and make them feel special
Gives your subscribers a new platform for interaction
Using a variety of platforms gives you an opportunity to reach out to your subscribers in different ways. All you need to do is let your customers know that you are active on social media while asking them to follow you to get all the latest information about new product launches, updates, discounts, and offers.
How to make social media and email marketing work in sync?
Now, since you know the advantages that come with social media and email marketing integration, let’s take a look at how both these platforms can be integrated and made to work in sync with each other.
1. Upload your subscriber list to your social media channels
By uploading your subscriber list on your social media channels, you can find a face and name to an email address. Simply put, it is a great way of following your customer base on social networks while keeping a check on their preferences and interests. Moreover, if your customers find your social media content relevant and are able to resonate with it, your chances of attracting new customers while getting in touch with quality prospects become more.
2. Encourage your social media followers to subscribe to your email list and vice versa
With the ever-evolving newsfeed algorithms, reaching and engaging prospects on social media becomes a challenging task. The chances of losing your followers and struggling to reconnect with them also become higher. Hence, to be in constant touch with your followers, you must encourage and invite your social media followers to become your email subscribers. It will help you strengthen your relationship with your social media community. You can take some inspiration from this excellent Facebook post of Birchbox. See how they are enticing people to join their email list by giving them exclusive offers.
3. Make way for incentive and referral-based marketing strategy
You can engage your prospective customers through an incentive-based marketing strategy. You can do so by encouraging your existing customers to refer your brand to their friends and family in exchange for an exciting discount or an incentive. All your customers need to do is get their near ones to like your Facebook page and follow your Twitter or LinkedIn handles.
4. Incorporate a “Retweet this” tag in your email
You can work on the cross-promotion of your campaign by featuring a relevant and interesting tweet with a “Retweet this” tag. It will motivate your subscribers to share it on their Twitter handles, thereby giving your brand exposure and recognition.
5. Work on embedding an email signup form on your social media channels
You can embed an email sign up form within your Facebook page. It will help you make your Facebook fans a part of your email list. It is a great way of bringing all your leads to a single platform and sending them trigger emails based on their actions.
6. Include live social media feed in your emails
Incorporating a live social media feed in your email campaigns is an excellent way of integrating social media and email marketing. You can do so with the help of tools like Zapier that enable you to add live feeds from Twitter and Instagram into your emails.
With a live Twitter feed in your email, a user can smoothly find the most recent tweets from any selected Twitter handle. Once they click on the tweet, they will be redirected to your Twitter account. As a result, you will get more organic followers and engagement on your Twitter account. As far as Instagram live feed solution is concerned, it would also drive your subscribers to your Instagram account, thereby enhancing your profile’s visibility. Here’s how Dunkin’ Donuts does it like a pro in their HTML Email Templates.
They created a live stream of fan posts with the name “Social hub” to entice their subscribers to join them on their various social media handles. They also made good use of the hashtag #DDPerksLove.
7. Leverage social media ads to retarget your active email subscribers
If you want to go ahead with a multi-channel marketing strategy, all you need to do is match the preference and interests of your subscribers with targeted ads. You can do so by leveraging the information about customers who have opened and clicked-through your email and retarget them with relevant social media ads. You can take some inspiration from lifestylestores. They do a great job with their retargeting ads. Take a look at their ad on Instagram.
It wouldn’t only help you reach out qualified and interested prospects but also make your marketing strategy cost-effective.
8. Organize social media giveaways to build your email list
You can build a good brand image for your business by creating a social media giveaway in the form of discounts and freebies. It is a great way of transforming your social media followers into your email subscribers and vice versa. If you are running a giveaway on social media, you can ask your followers to give their email addresses and opt in to receive your promotional emails. However, make sure you follow the GDPR guidelines to avoid any legal issues.
On the other hand, if you are running a contest through your email campaign, you can ask your subscribers to head towards your social media profile and enter to win exciting prizes. You can choose the winner through a random lucky draw. Here’s a great email template example from Apto Skincare where they are inviting their subscribers to join their Instagram channel to enter a contest for winning their signature face masks.
Wrap up
Email marketing and social media marketing are important for an impeccable digital marketing strategy. While email remains the most profitable marketing channel of all time, social media can assist you in crafting a friendly and approachable brand image.
Hence, if you wish to take your customer relationship to the next level, integrating both these channels together is the key. Start by including the various methods mentioned above and witness tremendous growth in your engagement and sales.
